IT IS 1986 AND IN THE SATELLITE TOWN OF HEMEL HEMPSTEAD, 24 MILES NORTH-WEST of London, the 19-year-old Steven Wilson is a home-recording obsessive, creating a private sonic world in his bedroom, working on a 4-track made for him by his electronics engineer father. Inspired by Gong, Hawkwind, but mainly XTC’s psychedelic capers as their Dukes Of Stratosphear alter-egos on 1985 mini-LP, 25 O’Clock, Wilson starts to imagine himself as the leader of some fictitious progressive rock band.
Giving them the suitably strange and mythical name Porcupine Tree, he conjures up a line-up in his mind (Timothy Tadpole-Jones, Sir Tarquin Underspoon, Mr Jelly), along with a backstor y hinting that some of the members might have spent time in prison.